Two Million Light Years From Christmas
by Eventhorizon7
Summary: When they are stranded upon an alien planet for Christmas, Sam decides that she is going to try and find out the reasons behind Daniel’s apparent dislike toward the holiday season. Please note that this will eventually be a Sam/Daniel romantic pairing.
1. Chapter 1

Author: Eventhorizon7

Rating: T

Categories: Hurt/Comfort/Romance

Pairing: Sam/Daniel

Summary: When they are stranded upon an alien planet for Christmas, Sam decides that she is going to try and find out the reasons behind Daniel's apparent dislike toward the holiday season.

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters they belong to Stargate SG-1 and MGM studios etc. I am making no money from them and sadly never will. If I did own them, believe me Sam and Daniel would have had much more fun with each other.

Feedback: If you have the time please leave a review as they are like oxygen to authors and breathe life into new stories.

Author's Note: This is my entry for the 'silly season' challenge that I set on Amaranth's and Thraesja's website. Go take a look at their website because it simply rocks!

This is a WIP, but as the silly season is already upon us and the culmination event is but only a few weeks away, it serves as a great deadline to have the story finished by.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Enjoy!

**Two Million Light Years From Christmas**

**Chapter One.**

"I don't believe this!"

Samantha Carter directed an irritated kick toward the treads of the MALP, her steel toed boot delivering a glancing blow of frustrated annoyance. She knew it wasn't the machine's fault, but like the age old adage, it had felt good to shoot the proverbial messenger.

Or in this case… to give it a damn good kicking.

Word had just come through from Stargate Command of their enforced stay upon the planet. They had been ordered to remain there until further notice, until the emergency that had befallen the base and its occupants had been rectified. No provisions could be sent through to them, for fear of contamination, nor could they send anything back through the event horizon, least of all a flesh and blood human being. As from that moment, Daniel and Sam were effectively cut off from their home world, reliant upon the continued hospitality of the residents of the village that they had been staying in for the past six days.

She knew that they were not the only people to find themselves stranded on a planet millions of light years away from Earth, there were at least nine other teams in the same situation as them. One team was running dangerously low on provisions and had to constantly forage for food and water in order to sustain themselves. Another team would have to brave the merciless elements of a planet caught in the grip of an impending ice age.

Is was obvious that the predicaments of those teams far outweighed their own, for she and Daniel were relatively safe and had befriended the villagers that lived close to the ancient ruins that they had been studying. She knew that the villager's would continue to look after them and feed them, of that she had no doubt. Even so, the timing of the unexpected announcement could not have been worse.

Of all the three hundred and sixty plus other days of the year that the SGC could be locked down with a contagion, why did it have to be now?

Why did it have to be on Christmas Eve?

From what she had been able to gather, the marines of SG-11 brought more than just the spirit of Christmas back from their last mission. With them had travelled a virulent form of retro virus, resulting in a pneumonic condition, similar to flu, but much more dangerous. It had swept through the base complex with all the speed of an unrestrained forest fire, infecting the personnel with frightening speed. A state of quarantine had therefore been enforced and the base had been shut off from the outside world so as not to spread the infection further.

Hence their little extended vacation.

She looked down at the MALP, considering kicking it again, if only to give her pent up annoyance an outlet, but she knew that the miniscule amount of satisfaction gained in assaulting the vehicle would soon be offset when reality returned again.

She let out a soft sigh of resigned acceptance.

"So much for me being on that flight to San Diego this evening." She ran a weary hand through her close cropped blonde hair. "Mark and the kids were going to pick me up from the airport." Her eyes glanced toward the now inactive Stargate. "I hope Landry manages to get a message to him?"

"I'm sure he won't leave your brother hanging, Sam." The sound of Daniel's voice caused her to turn toward him. He was sitting upon a dusty boulder a couple of feet away from her, his right hand wrapped around his water bottle. As she watched, he raised it to his lips and began to sip at its contents thoughtfully. His eyes met with hers over the rim of the bottle, a guarded expression passing across their blue depths before he quickly looked away, glancing toward the shimming heat haze in the distance.

That was another gripe that she had about being stranded on this planet. It wasn't even the same season here as it was back home. As if to confirm her last thought, a trickle of perspiration began to meander its way down between the valley of her breasts, sticking her khaki vest top to her body as if it were affixed there by super glue.

She plucked ineffectually at the garment, pulling it away from her heated body, trying to get some semblance of air flowing across her hot skin. Not even a waft of coolness passed across her flesh and she released her hold on the vest with a dissatisfied sigh, watching as it moulded itself to her once again.

It was so unfair.

Back in Colorado the snow already lay thick and crisp and even, while here, it looked as if a summer drought had taken a vicious hold upon the planet. The earth beneath her combat booted feet was sun baked and parched, the ground cracked with a multitude of long, jagged fissures that ran off in a myriad of directions. The trees of the forest showed signs of stunted growth, the leaves so dry and brittle from lack of moisture that they disintegrated into tiny particles of dust at the merest touch.

She calculated that it must have been many months since it last rained.

All in all… it wasn't an environment conducive to the North American yuletide season.

"Do you know what really rankles?" Her soft blue eyes left the horizon that she had been staring at and settled once more upon the sun bronzed face of her teammate and best friend. "I decided to treat myself to a first class seat, thought it might be a good idea to travel in comfort for a change."

A look of contrition swept across Daniel's face.

"I'm sorry." His eyes left hers, dropping to look at the dusty ground at his feet. "If it's any consolation, I will reimburse you the price of the ticket when we get back home."

"This wasn't your fault, Daniel."

"Yes, it was."

"No, it wasn't."

"Yes, it was."

He sighed, closing the lid on his water bottle, replacing it back upon his belt. He twisted a little to one side, using his hands to brush across his fatigues, sending small puffs of brown dust skyward as his fingers dislodged some of the accumulated dirt and grime.

"These ancient ruins aren't that important. I shouldn't have insisted that we come here." He pulled a green bandana out of a Velcro pocket, using it to wipe the dirt encrusted sweat from his face.

"You didn't know that at the time." Sam tried to placate him with her words, knowing that if she didn't, he would blame himself for what had happened. "You based your decision on the initial telemetry sent back from the MALP."

"Still, it could have waited until after the holidays." He paused to tie the bandana around his neck. "It's only through my insistence that you're here." He shrugged his shoulders in resignation. "So in the grand scheme of things…it's my fault."

Sam had become too accustomed to seeing Daniel react like this, it had happened so often during their long friendship that she had almost convinced herself that guilt and blame had become his default setting.

She continued to scrutinise him as he rose from the boulder, hauling his backpack over his shoulders, adjusting its weight with a nudge and a push until it sat in a more comfortable position. He pulled his boonie hat out of his pants pocket and tugged it firmly down upon his head, shielding his eyes from the sun's strong midday glare.

To anyone else it looked as though he were preparing himself for the long hike back to the village, however, to Sam, his body language and sudden lapse into silence bore witness to the fact that he was still chastising himself over their predicament.

"Daniel, I don't blame you." She tried to reassure him again, but from the look on his face, she realised that her words had fallen far short of their intention. "There was no way that you could have seen this happening."

"I still shouldn't have brought you out here so close to the holidays." He stared at her, his eyes soft with sorrow. "Worse…I should have kept to the original schedule. I shouldn't have asked you if we could extend it past the twenty-third, it's only through my selfishness that you are going to miss out on one of the few chances you get to be with your family."

He looked as if he was about to say something else, but in the end he just shook his head dejectedly. He took a few hesitant steps away from the clearing, leaving the MALP to stand silent sentinel over the Stargate and headed down toward the trail that led back to the village.

Sam fell into step beside him, trying to think of something else she could say that would lighten the burden of guilt that he was determined to heap upon his shoulders.

"Has it occurred to you that even if we had returned to Earth on schedule, we still would have been caught up in the lockdown."

"You can't be sure of that." Daniel paused, checking the webbing on his backpack straps, adjusting them slightly so as they didn't bite into his shoulders. "We could have managed to avoid it."

"I don't think so." Sam took a moment to adjust her own pack, which had slipped slightly lopsided. She jiggled and wriggled a bit before she managed to shrug it into a more stable position, all the while fixing her gaze upon that of her unhappy friend. "Returning on schedule would have meant that SG-11 would have come back on the same day as us. We would have been caught up doing the usual round of debriefing, report making and housekeeping. You know as well as I do that neither one of us would have left the base before today, so in all likelihood we would have been stranded there instead."

She waited for her words to sink in, letting out a soft breath of relief when she noticed a tiny relaxation of the stress lines around his eyes, a small concession in the blame game that he had undertaken with himself.

"Daniel, if we had gone home on time, it would have exposed us both to the contagion that SG-11 brought back with them. We would have been quarantined with the rest of the base and I still wouldn't have made it on that plane tonight."

He nodded slightly, an acknowledgement of the validity of her argument, but she knew from years of experience that it usually took more than that for him to let himself off the hook entirely.

She also knew that it was likely that a part of him had been secretly pleased that he would not have to partake in the Christmas festivities. She felt certain that it was probably that realisation, accompanied by his genuine sorrow at Sam's missed opportunity, that was really fuelling his guilt fest.

In all the years that she had known him, she had never been able to understand why he disliked this time of year. Whenever she had brought the subject up, he had just shrugged his shoulders and mumbled something about spending too many Christmas holidays in foster care, but she knew that there was much more to it than that.

He just didn't want to talk about it.

In the past it had only been Jack's persistent badgering of him that had made him take part in any of the base activities. Since the General's departure to Washington, Daniel had become more and more isolated during this period, locking himself away in his lab, preferring to be on his own, treating the days leading up to the main event like they were any other.

Last year he managed to get himself on an archaeological dig in Egypt and he was gone for all of Christmas and New Year, only turning up at the SGC again when he knew that all the bunting and tree lights had been taken down and boxed away.

From the looks of things…this year he had gone one better. He had managed to put himself millions of light years beyond the reach of the Christmas festivities.

A thought suddenly occurred to Sam, lifting the despondency that she was feeling at missing her flight home to her family.

She had the perfect opportunity to try and find out once and for all why Daniel hated this time of year. With a little effort on her part, she might be able to get to the bottom of his annual melancholia and in so doing, find a way for him to enjoy this special time of year.

"Daniel?"

"Hmmm."

"Will you be okay on your own for a while when we get back to the village? I have a few things I'd like to do before supper."

He looked at her curiously, as though he was trying to ascertain why she might need some time away from him. His eyes bore intently into hers for a few moments longer before he seemed to reach a decision with himself, then he slowly nodded his head in acquiescence.

"I'll be fine, Sam. You take all the time that you need. I've got that latest stone tablet to translate and then I have to catalogue the artefacts that we found the day before yesterday."

"Thanks, Daniel."

Already she was making a mental checklist of what she would need to make her bourgeoning plan work. It would take some nifty improvisation on her part, but hey…she'd blown up a sun…so, theoretically what she was contemplating now should be a piece of cake.

She just hoped that she could get everything up and running in the short time period that was allotted to her.

As they resumed their trek back toward the village, the pieces of her impromptu idea started to fall further into place and she couldn't help a smile from playing across her lips.

If she wasn't going to make it home in time for Christmas, then she was just going to have to make Christmas come to her.

And she knew just how to do it!


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N Sorry this has taken so long, but real life has become chaotic of late with the run up to the holidays. It looks like the rest of the story will have to be finished after Christmas as I have a very hectic schedule. To tell you the truth, writing this chapter has been like pulling teeth and I have done so many rewrites that I had begun to get fed up with it, so if it isn't up to my usual standards then I apologise. Please leave a comment if you can, as at least then I will feel that I'm still heading in the right direction.**

**Happy Holidays everyone!**

**Two Million Light Years From Christmas**

**Chapter 2.**

He had kept working on the translation until dark. Until the light had diminished significantly enough to have made reading almost impossible and his eyes had began to protest.

His joints and muscles ached with bitter complaint from having spent too long in the same position and he rubbed gingerly at them in the hope of dampening down their disapproval. Rising reluctantly from his makeshift desk, a large stone slab that sat in one corner of the small thatched hut that he and Sam shared, he began to work out the kinks that had taken up residence in his back and shoulders.

He stopped his ministrations long enough to switch on one of their battery operated hurricane lamps. It was only then, when the yellow shaft of light reached out into the small confines of the room, that he realised just how dark it had become.

And that he was still alone.

Sam has been gone for the better part of the afternoon and evening. She had put in a brief appearance at supper, but she had been distant and distracted and had soon made her apologies, rushing off to converse with some of the village elders before wandering off again with a group of children in tow.

It had become obvious to Daniel that she was avoiding him, if that was the case, and he was pretty sure that it was, then he couldn't say that he blamed her. If it wasn't for him and his selfishness, his best friend could have been looking forward to celebrating her first real family Christmas in years.

Unbeknown to Sam, he knew that they didn't need to be here. He had used the sketchy telemetry from the MALP as a convenient excuse to escape the base after his plans to go on an expedition to the Yucatan had fallen through.

He had jumped upon the first available thing he could find, but he had still needed someone to 'cover his six' as the military euphemistically called it. When Mitchell, Teal'c and even Vala had managed to exclude themselves from the mission, it had been left to Sam to fill the breach, and even she had needed some convincing.

And how had he repaid her?

By stranding them here on Christmas Eve of all nights.

Right now she should be on her way to San Diego, full of the joys of the season and looking forward to spending some much needed downtime with the people that she loved. Instead she was stranded on a planet that she didn't want to be on, with the one man that treated Christmas with about the same disdain as Scrooge.

What made matters worse was the fact that Daniel knew that things between Sam and her brother had been strained ever since Jacob's sudden passing. Mark had never believed the official line and had pestered his sister incessantly for the truth, a truth that she was duty bound to keep from him.

As a result, their personal relationship soured, to the point that they had hardly spoken to one another during the last two years.

The unexpected olive branch that her brother had offered this year had been a chance for them to ease some of that unwanted estrangement. Daniel could only hope that her brother didn't see Sam's imposed absence as a snub.

When he got back home he would have to find a way to contact him, to somehow explain that it wasn't Sam's fault that she couldn't make it home in time for the holidays.

It was the least that he could do.

Glancing at the luminescent dial on his watch showed him that it was getting late. Summer on this planet was pretty much like that upon Earth, with the sun going down late into the night.

He couldn't help but wonder if she was okay?

Was it possible that she might have gotten herself into some sort of trouble?

His hand inched its way toward the radio at his shoulder, but he stopped it before his fingers had the chance to touch it. The last time he had seen her, she had been with a group of villagers, if anything had happened surely they would have raised the alarm by now.

It was likely that she was using the time away from him to come to terms with the deep disappointment that she must have been feeling. No doubt she was internally railing against the injustice of it all, but he knew her well enough by now to know that by the time that she returned, her emotions would once again be tightly schooled behind that strict military façade that she wore.

"Hey."

He turned toward the sound of her voice, seeing her standing in the entrance of the hut, her hand brushing to one side the long, leather curtain that acted as their door to the outside world.

"I was just about to raise a search party and come looking for you." The relief that suddenly flooded his system at seeing her caused him to take an involuntary step forward.

"Sorry, Daniel, I didn't mean to worry you." She let go of the leather curtain as she stepped further into the hut, it swung a few times on its rail before sliding neatly back into position. "I just needed some time to sort a few things out."

So he was right.

She had needed to spend some time away from him.

"It's okay…" He picked up an artifact that was laying upon a small workbench, pretending to study it, running his fingers smoothly across its uneven surface. "If I were you…I'd probably need some time away from me too."

"Daniel, when are you going to stop beating yourself up all the time over things that you have absolutely no control over?" Her hand slipped gently across his, disengaging the artifact from his fingers, placing it back down upon the bench. "I do not hold you accountable for what has happened to us. It was just a combination of bad luck and even worse timing, that's all."

"But…" She silenced me him with a slender finger against his lips.

"No buts…I know that you feel bad that I've missed out on seeing my family this year, and yes I have to admit to being a little disappointed about that," Her finger moved away from his mouth, "but at least I'm not stranded here alone and thankfully I'm not freezing my ass off on some ice planet." She smiled softly at him. "I'm lucky enough to be on a planet where the locals are friendly, where we are safe from any threat to our welfare and where best of all..." her smile broadened until it was wide and bright, "…I get a chance to spend Christmas with you."

Daniel made a small huffing noise in the back of his throat.

"Trust me, Sam, you'd have been better off spending your Christmas as far away from me as you can get." He looked at her with earnest eyes. "I'm not the best person to be around, I'll just ruin this for you."

"Couldn't you try and overcome your despondency for just one year?" She moved closer to him, until she was within his personal space, it was something that she only ever did with him, as though she knew instinctively that he didn't mind the intrusion. "Even Scrooge managed to change a habit of a lifetime and look how it changed his life."

He contemplated her words, knowing that she was only uttering them because she was trying to help him shake off the cloying shroud of gloom and despondency that surrounded him, but he also knew that dispelling those feelings wouldn't be as easy as she made it sound.

"Come on, Daniel," Her hands came to rest upon his shoulders, shaking them gently, "whatever happened to your Christmas spirit?"

He closed his eyes against her enquiry, feeling the first tendrils of unhappiness begin to infiltrate his heart, winding firmly and inextricably around that most important of bodily organs, squeezing it with a severity that threatened to restrict its vital blood supply. At the same time, he could feel his entire demeanour changing, becoming heavy with a combination of immense sorrow and long held regrets.

"My Christmas spirit was taken away from me a long time ago."

"Then maybe it's time you found a way to get it back."

"I can't get it back." His words came out upon a whisper, their intonation matching the emotions that now weighed heavy within his chest. He opened his eyes to find her staring at him, seeing the curiosity that his words had aroused warring with her instinctive sense not to invade his privacy further. "I can't get it back, Sam, because it's in a place that I haven't allowed myself to go to in a very long time."

"Why?"

He just shook his head, unable to find suitable words to describe the complexities that drove his emotions during this time of year.

"Daniel, surely you can see that hiding from the people that care about you isn't working?"

He shrugged noncommittally, not knowing what else to say or do.

He felt Sam's hand take a firm grip upon his, linking her strong, slender fingers through his own until they were snugly entangled together.

"Come on, we're going for a walk in the moonlight."

For a moment he tried to hang back, not wanting to venture out into the night and partake in whatever it was that Sam had in mind. Then she turned around to face him, a silent question forming within the fathomless depths of her pale blue eyes.

_Do you trust me?_

Of course that was a no brainer.

He knew that he trusted Sam more than he trusted anyone else in his life.

For the last ten years he had allowed himself to go forth unwaveringly upon whatever course Sam had plotted for them as a team, without a shred of indecision or doubt. She had protected him, comforted him, encouraged him and had literally saved his life more times than he could count. Not only had she saved him in a professional sense, but she has also saved him in a personal one, coming to his aide time and time again when she had sensed that he had been floundering.

Without her, he feared that he would have lost his sanity a very long time ago.

Amid that moment of crystal clear clarity, he knew that he would follow her anywhere, to the ends of the cosmos if she were to ask him.

He took a step forward and followed her out of the hut.

Outside, the village was silent, its inhabitants presumably having already bedded down for the night. The torches that usually lit the thoroughfares had been doused for safety, and only the soft burnished moonlight illuminated the main square, its shafts of lunar radiance enough to navigate by.

"Where exactly are we going?"

"You'll see, it's not that far." Sam tugged at his hand, leading him along the deserted street until they reached the perimeter of the village. Instead of stopping as he had anticipated, she carried on into the small forested area that lay beyond, her steps measured and certain, as though she were following an instinctual path that nobody else could see.

"Ah…Sam…is this a good idea?"

"It'll be fine, Daniel, you're trusting me, remember."

The trees began to thin out, becoming more sparse as the woodland gave way to the dry grasslands beyond. Up ahead, he could just make out a faint glow in the night sky, but he was unable to see it clearly. Around this misshapen apparition were a group of tiny coloured lights, as indistinguishable as the object itself. He squinted into the darkness, scrunching up his eyes in an effort to see more clearly, but his myopic eyesight failed him and the fuzzy shapes refused to coalesce into a recognizable form. He glanced across at Sam, but she didn't seem disturbed by the lights ahead of them, in fact she appeared to be humming softly to herself.

He decided to relax and let her take the lead, it was the least that he could do considering what he had put her through that day. A thought suddenly occurred to him, but he shrugged it aside after only brief contemplation.

If it turned out that she was taking him out into the forest to exact some kind of revenge upon him…then so be it.

He deserved whatever punishment that she had waiting for him.

They broke from the trees and he found himself in a large clearing. Directly in front of him was a roaring camp fire, a curtain of heat radiated outward and he could feel its warmth prickle against his skin.

Two dozen feet beyond the camp fire stood a small tree, its branches festooned with shiny aluminium coloured decorations. He could distinctly pick out the shapes of stars, snowflakes and small silver bells. They swayed slightly in the cool evening breeze, fluttering to and fro, a shimmer of light glinting occasionally as the glow of the firelight played across them. Winding through the tree branches were the pinpricks of light that he had seen earlier and he realised that they belonged to a string of tiny white light bulbs inter-spaced with a range of different coloured crystals. They had been strung together upon thin strands of electrical wire. His eyes followed the wiring to its culmination and he was surprised to see that the makeshift cable was neatly plugged into the backup generator of the MALP.

They were two million light years from Earth and here he was standing before a Christmas tree!

On Christmas Eve.

It was so typically…Sam.

He turned in a tight circle, continuing to assimilate all the different sites that suddenly greeted his eyes.

He realised that his earlier assumption regarding the inhabitants of the village had been grossly misplaced, for it would appear that most, if not all of them, were not safely tucked up in bed as he had assumed, but were taking part in the impromptu party.

Trestle tables had been set up all along the perimeter of the clearing with countless arrays of local meats and savoury delicacies displayed upon them. Large iron pots containing delicious stews bubbled and spluttered upon small makeshift fires.

The various aromas permeated the air, sending Daniel's taste buds into a frenzy of high expectation.

Upon other tables, he could see barrels of ale and uncorked pottery urns full of wine, and it looked as though many of the villagers had already started the party without them, for they were walking around holding cups filled with a variety of concoctions.

At certain points around the perimeter, torches had been hammered into the ground and lit, illuminating the area so that everyone could see more clearly.

In a far corner, a group of villagers were setting up a very diverse ensemble of musical instruments, he could see planetary variations of tin whistles, recorders, reed instruments, and a drum. Perched high upon a stool, one man was busily tuning an apparatus that had the same shape and design as a violin.

Soon the sound of soft, sweet music filled the night air, its melodic cadence drifting upon the gentle night breeze. Groups of villagers began to pause in their conversations with each other to listen quietly to the music, while others began to make their way toward the musicians, laughing and joking merrily as they went.

Even though most of the preparations were alien by design and some in no way resembled Earthbound traditions, there were still enough similarities to evoke within Daniel memories that he wished would remain forever secreted away.

Inwardly he felt like groaning and a part of him wanted to make an excuse and return to the solitude of the village. If he were honest with himself, he knew that this was not what he needed right now. He didn't need the reminder of something that he annually tried so very hard to forget. It was bad enough on base, when come December, every inch of the underground complex began to look as though it had been taken over by some kind of yuletide alien virus.

He had thought that the military had strict codes about such things, but he had found out early on in his association with Stargate command that certain rules and regulations could be manipulated given the right incentive. Of course he couldn't really blame them, for most of the year, the command operated within the bounds of strict secrecy, within a myriad of regulations and protocols, so it seemed only right that when the rules were bent, they grasped it with open arms.

He only wished that they would leave him out of it.

Sometimes being on base almost became unbearable, compounding the desolation and melancholy that regularly descended upon him at this time of year.

And yet he couldn't tell anyone about it.

He wanted to.

He really did.

A couple of times he actually contemplated just telling Jack or Sam why it was that he found it so hard and painful to join in the festivities, but he could never bring himself to ruin the light hearted buzz that always seemed to follow his friends around during the holiday season.

He thought about telling Teal'c, but he wasn't sure that the Jaffa would understand either, especially as he seemed to get as caught up in the revelry as everyone else.

So, he kept it to himself, locked it away, pasted on a false smile and just tried to find some way of surviving what amounted to the toughest few days of the year. It had gotten easier since Jack's departure to Washington, the others didn't seem to go to the same extremes as Jack always had.

Unless you counted Vala, but then she had always been a law unto herself and Daniel had learned a long time ago the best way to deflect her penchant to party.

Plus, recently he had managed to find inventive ways in which to avoid the Christmas season altogether.

Until now.

"Daniel?"

There was a note of anxious concern within the timbre of Sam's voice and the sound of it made him realise that he had been silent for too long, staring vacantly at the glowing Christmas tree.

"Daniel, are you alright?"

Despite how he truly felt, he choose yet again to don his masquerade mask, this time purely for Sam's benefit.

"So this is what you have been up to for most of the afternoon and evening?" He managed to paste a smile upon his lips and hoped that Sam would not be able to see through the thinly disguised charade.

The ruse seemed to work because she nodded enthusiastically, an impish grin turning up the corners of her mouth. It was so endearing that he almost wanted to pull her into a hug, to pull her against him so that he could hide from all the turmoil that he was feeling by burrowing himself deep within the warmth of her embrace.

Instead his eyes left hers to scan the decorated tree, to give it the perusal that her efforts truly deserved. The first thing that he noticed was that the aluminium coloured adornments had once belonged to an SGC issue space blanket, the crystals and lights were undoubtedly part of the backup components for the MALP and DHD. Further scrutiny revealed other elements of their combined kit, no longer resembling their original intent, but jury rigged into decorations and embellishments.

It is obvious that Sam has gone to a lot of trouble, even to the point of hiking back to the Stargate to retrieve the MALP and painstakingly manoeuvring it back to the clearing.

That alone must have taken her hours.

He had to give her ten out of ten for sheer inventiveness.

This time when he smiled, it was genuine.

"I wonder what the Air Force is going to make of you misappropriating its supplies for your personal use?"

"Let's just say that these supplies were liberated and redeployed for cultural reasons."

Her impish grin intensified, causing her soft blue eyes to crinkle at the corners.

"Cultural reasons?" Daniel slipped his hands into his pockets and rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, peering at her over the rims of his spectacles. "And exactly what cultural reasons would those be?"

"To share our cultural traditions with the inhabitants of this world." The side of her mouth quirked up slightly. "What better way than to throw a Christmas party." She crossed the couple of steps that separated them, slipping her arm easily around his waist, manoeuvring herself until their bodies were almost pressed tightly together."Will you do something for me tonight, Daniel?"

"What's that?"

"Will you let me show you another side of Christmas, one that doesn't have to be about despair and despondency, but full of hope?"

"I'll try, Sam." Even as the words left his mouth, he was unsure that he could live up to the promise that he had just given her.

She gave him that warm, tender smile that she always seemed to keep in reserve for him, before twisting out of his embrace and linking her arm through his. Together they started toward the group of musicians, stopping every now and again at one of the various trestle tables in order to sample its fare.

It wasn't long before Daniel's anthropological curiosity got the better of him and he found himself deep in conversation with the village elders. He discovered that there were indeed many similarities between Earth's winter festivals and those of the planet, although the elders seemed to find the idea of exchanging presents to be a curious custom.

In time he even found that he was beginning to enjoy himself, letting down some of the strict barriers that he had erected and fortified over the years, in order to allow some of the relaxed atmosphere of the party to infuse itself within him.

He knew that a big part of that relaxation process was thanks to Sam. She mingled with the villagers with an ease and grace that he had found beguiling, engaging with them in conversation, laughing and joking with them in a way that she seldom did when they were on official missions.

From time to time the firelight would catch her features in a particular way, causing her face to glow with excitement and unrestrained happiness, bringing out the soft blue hue of her incredible eyes, enhancing them as they seemed to dance with a merriment that she rarely allowed anyone to witness. Her short blonde hair cast a golden halo around her head, making her look as though she had been transformed by the firelight into a divine angel, sent down directly from the heart of heaven for the sole purpose of being with him upon this night.

She had never looked more beautiful or radiant and Daniel had never felt more drawn to her than he did that night.

As the night progressed, he began to wonder why he had allowed himself to be consumed by so much self imposed isolation over the years? Why had he not just thrown off the mantle of melancholia and allowed himself to believe that there could be optimism again in his life.

Why had he become so resistant to the idea that he could once again find happiness and harmony, peace and love?

His eyes drifted around the clearing, settling briefly upon the Christmas tree, feeling for the first time the absence of anguish as he looked upon it. Instead of the despondency and sadness that he usually associated with this symbol of yuletide cheer, he saw it for what it truly was, a beacon of light and hope.

He allowed a small appreciative smile to grace his lips.

Maybe, just maybe, there was hope for him after all.

He looked away from the sparkling tree, with its myriad of adornments and settled his attention upon a family that had gathered nearby. The husband was smiling happily toward his wife, they whispered something softly to one another before his hand smoothed across the small swell of his wife's abdomen. Their young son ran up to them, chatting enthusiastically with his parents, jumping up and down in unconcealed joy. The father picked him up, hoisting him aloft, throwing him skyward amid a torrent of whoops and giggles, catching him again in a pair of safe, strong arms as the boy plummeted back toward the ground, his giggles turning into peals of raucous laughter.

The cold hand of misery took that moment to wrap its desolate fingers around Daniel's heart once more, squeezing it within its clenched fist. He felt the first sharp pinpricks of tears prickle against the back of his eyes, felt the tightening of his larynx as his throat constricted against the sob that had threatened to break free.

Suddenly a torrent of bittersweet memories assailed his mind, overwhelming his now lowered fortifications, threatening to annihilate his lifelong barricades to mortally pierce his heart.

He cast a glance toward Sam, willing her to see the desolation that had once again befallen him, but she was in conversation with one of the women from the village.

She couldn't see him.

She couldn't render any aid in his rescue from the tumultuous feelings that were cascading through him.

His anchor had drifted away.

All at once, it all became too much for him to bear.

Pivoting around on his heel, his shoulders hunched against the torment and pain that he was feeling, Daniel left the celebrations, marching off into the forested woodland beyond the clearing and disappeared into the night.


	3. Chapter 3

**Two Million Light Years From Christmas**

**Chapter 3**

**A/N I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year! Sorry this yuletide story is dragging on into the New Year, but things have been hectic. Here at last is the next chapter. I hope you enjoy it. If you do, let me know.**

Sam had been in conversation with one of the village elders when some kind of sixth sense had alerted her that something was wrong with Daniel. It was strange how that happened sometimes, how she seemed to be attuned to him on a level of consciousness that defied explanation.

Glancing away from her host, she quickly scanned the area where she had last seen him, but he was no longer with the group of elders that she had left him with earlier.

A knot of apprehension tightened in her stomach.

Using her military training, she discreetly reconnoitred the perimeter, quickly evaluating and discarding several shadows that could have been his. Finally, she located him, head bent low, hands thrust deep inside his pockets as he strode determinedly toward a forested area that lay at the back of the clearing.

There appeared to be no clear cut reason for him to be heading in that particular direction and Sam had a feeling that he probably didn't know where it was that he was going. It looked to her as though he was just blindly heading in the nearest direction that would take him far enough away from the festivities.

And something was wrong.

Making her excuses, she stepped away from the woman that she had been talking to and started after him, pushing her way through some of the crowd of villagers who were mingling around her, trying to keep her eye on where he was going, so that she wouldn't lose sight of him.

It wasn't an easy task to achieve.

The party was in full swing and the clearing was now packed with villagers enjoying the revelry. It was hard to keep her focus on Daniel's retreating back and at one point she had to smartly sidestep her way around a group of children that were playing a planetary variation of leap frog.

Through sheer determination she made it to the clearing's perimeter without being waylaid by several of the villagers. She took a brief moment to look behind her, making sure that none of the inhabitants were following, before she quietly pushed into the forest beyond.

It took a few seconds for her night vision to re-establish itself as she moved through the dappled shadows cast by the moonlight. The forest felt eerie, compared with the party atmosphere that she had just left behind and she couldn't help a shudder from stealing through her body.

Why had Daniel chosen to come out here?

What could have happened to have changed his mood from the relaxed and happy one that she had seen earlier?

When she had left him with the elders he had appeared to be enjoying himself, engaging with the them on topics that had been to their beneficial interest.

He had been more like the Daniel that she knew.

The one that accompanied her on missions for the other fifty-one weeks of the year. The one that she had witnessed immersing himself in all kinds of celebratory customs on more planets than she cared to count.

A slight movement in her periphery broke through her thoughts causing her to jerk her head in the direction from which it came. Quietly she adjusted her position, fighting down the urge to go into a defensive crouch, reminding herself that she was on a safe world and that no threat lurked within the shadows to harm her.

As she adjusted her focus, she could pick out the shape of Daniel's silhouette as he sat in a shaft of moonlight. He was sitting at the base of a large tree, his back resting against its gnarled trunk, long legs pulled up against his chest, his arms wrapped protectively around his knees.

No doubt it had been his slight movement that had captured her attention.

She relaxed, feeling the tension that she had been feeling since she had first seen him retreating into the forest begin to recede. She took a deep breath and began to approach him cautiously, not wanting to startle him with her sudden and unexpected appearance.

A part of her also didn't want him to know of her presence, not until she could ascertain the full extent of his emotional turmoil.

From what she could gauge from her position of concealment within the trees, it looked as though he was still very distressed. It also looked as though his shoulders were hitching with the effort of stifling his quiet, but steady sobs.

Sam briefly closed her eyes, silently berating herself.

_Oh, Daniel! What have I done?_

She took a moment to collect herself, to get her own emotions back under a semblance of control. Taking a deep lungful of air, she let it out slowly, feeling it wash away the anguish that had been seeping through her body moments earlier.

As she took a measured step forward, her momentum caused a dry twig under her combat boot to snap loudly in the encompassing silence of the forest. Daniel's head shot upward, his eyes nervously scanning the area in front of him, clearly looking for a threat.

One of his hands inched toward the zat'ni'katel housed in the holster at his side.

When his blue watery eyes met with Sam's she couldn't help but see the true extent of his misery and sorrow.

"Daniel?"

His eyes held hers, the pain more evident now than it had been before, tears brimming over the parapets of his eyelashes to cascade in rivulets down his cheeks.

"I tried…." His voice caught in his throat choking off his next words. He swallowed convulsively a couple of times to clear it. "I really did try…" A tiny smile flittered across his lips before vanishing. "For a brief moment I allowed myself to forget, I managed to banish the melancholy and for a time…" His hand clenched into a fist as it rested upon his knee. "… for a brief moment in time I actually allowed myself to enjoy the celebrations." His eyes slipped away from hers and focused instead upon the ground at his feet. "I should have known that it wouldn't last…that something would burst that tiny bubble of hope that I had allowed myself to cultivate."

Sam crossed the small distance that stood between them, reaching for him with her hand, resting it against his shoulder, squeezing reassurance into it.

"Daniel, what happened?"

He spent a long moment staring at the ground, not willing or not wanting to answer her, then his gaze slowly raised until he was looking at her once again.

"I was reminded of something that I lost, something that I haven't truly been a part of for a very long time."

"What was that?"

"A family."

She was glad for the shaft of moonlight, for it afforded her an unconcealed view and she could see that her friend was in desperate need of her comfort. Crossing the small distance that was between them, she lowered herself to the ground, taking a seat next to him, pushing her back against the large tree trunk that they now shared and grasped his hand tightly within hers.

Holding it snugly, she waited quietly for him to decide whether he wanted to take his earlier declaration further.

"You know for most of the year it is easy to pretend that I don't crave that which so many other people take for granted." Daniel shifted his fingers, interlocking them between Sam's. "Then for one week every year, that carefully structured façade that I choose to erect teeters upon the brink of collapse." He smiled softly, but his eyes became watery again with unshed tears.

"I'm so sorry, Daniel. This is my fault… I shouldn't have done this… I shouldn't have arranged this party…the tree…everything…it's too much."

"This wasn't your fault, Sam. You had every right to celebrate…it's your favourite time of the year." A subtle quirk of his lips turned up the corner of his mouth. "I just should have done a better job of avoiding it."

Sam shook her head emphatically.

"No. I owe you an apology. One of the reasons that I did this was because I…" The words that she had been wanting to say abruptly left her and she could find no others willing to take their place at such short notice. Embarrassed, she looked sheepishly away, her eyes casting downward toward their clasped hands.

She felt the fingers of Daniel's free hand slip under her chin, felt the soft pressure against her skin as he gently and tenderly lifted it upward until she was facing him again.

"Because you what, Sam?"

She could no longer deny him the truth of her words, but she couldn't help wondering what the cost would be to their friendship.

"I thought I could get you to open up. I thought I could get you to explain to me why you act so out of character this time of year, but now I realise that there are some things that I don't have a right to ask of you, and this is one of them." She tried to smile at him, but she knew that it was half hearted at best. "I shouldn't expect you to open your soul to me, but I guess I've gotten used to it, used to sharing things with you that nobody else knows about."

"Sam…"

"I shouldn't have brought you to the clearing. The least I should have done was explain my intentions and given you a choice."

"Sam…"

"Instead…I force you out here against your will and subject you to something that… to all intents and purposes… tortures you…" Her free hand rested against his check before her fingers softly smoothed away the remnants of his tears. "Look what I've done… look what I've…"

Daniel silenced her the same way that she had done him earlier, with a finger against her lips.

"Sam." His eyes had taken on a darker hue of blue as he now focused them intently upon her. "I want you to know."

She shook her head in the negative.

"In some ways, you are the only person I can tell."

She felt her eyes narrowing at that somewhat cryptic remark, there seemed to be a lot more to that simple statement than its initial meaning, but right now she couldn't even begin to try and understand it.

"I want to share this with you." Slowly he removed his finger from her lips. "I want you to understand this part of me and then maybe…" His eyes seemed to search hers as though he was looking for something, but then he just shook his head, as though ridding himself of whatever question was posed in that stare, as though he hadn't had the right to ask it. "…maybe then you can accept it."

She knew instinctively that those last few words were not the ones that he had originally intended. That they were somehow a last second compromise, hiding from her the true nature of his thoughts at that moment.

What had he been intending to say?

What had his eyes been asking her?

She wanted to know.

She wanted to know more about what had just happened between them, she wanted that revelation much more than any he could provide regarding his dislike of Christmas. She had an instinctual feeling that if she passed up this opportunity to ask him about it, the moment might never repeat itself again.

"Daniel…"

"You know, there was a time when I loved this time of year with an enthusiasm and passion that matched everyone else. I used to count down the weeks, the days and my excitement would mount the closer it got to Christmas Day."

Despite wanting to ask him more than anything about his unvoiced question, Sam couldn't help but be drawn into the story.

"What happened?"

"Do you remember P7J 989?"

Sam's eyes slammed shut upon hearing that designator. Of course she remembered that planet, her recollections of it had been seared into her memory as surely as if they had been put there by a branding iron.

It was the Gamekeeper's planet.

"Do you remember what you saw when you shared that memory with me, Sam?"

"The death of your parents."

Oh God!

Not again.

"You asked me earlier what happened to my Christmas spirit? That's what happened to it. It died with my parents, along with every ounce of hope that I had ever had."

Perhaps she didn't want to hear the rest of this story after all.

"Just after my eighth birthday we moved to New York. My parents had been given a prestigious posting. They had been named as joint curators of Egyptian Antiquities at the New York Museum of Art. Even as a child I could tell that they were excited. Many of the artefacts in the collection had been discovered by them during their latest expedition to the Nile valley and they had been eager to set up the exhibition room to showcase their findings.

I was as excited as they were, but for very different reasons. New York was a big cosmopolitan city, I found it exhilarating, colourful and full of so many different sounds and cultures. It also provided me with a rare opportunity to converse with people in my native tongue. Up until that point I had spent most of my childhood secreted away in the desert, going from one dig site to another. I never felt as though I had any roots and as soon as I made any friends it was time to move on and I had to leave them behind."

"It must have been tough on you." Sam knew what it was like to be constantly uprooted and moved around. For her it had been from one Air Force base to another as her father climbed steadily up the military career ladder.

"That Christmas my parents told me that we would be staying in New York for at least two years, maybe more, they were even thinking of renting a house in the suburbs. It was the present that I had been longing for, a chance for me to have a little bit of stability in my life. A chance to belong, to settle in one place for much longer than it took to unpack a dusty suitcase."

His eyes took on a wistful look and Sam knew that he was back there, in that moment, an awestruck little boy caught up in the hubble and bubble of a large and mysterious city. She wished for a moment that she could have been there, that she could have seen the boy that had grown into this wonderful and caring man.

"That wasn't the only surprise gift that I had been given on that Christmas morning. I was given another, much more precious one, one that I had been wishing to have for such a long time."

His narrative stalled, his facial features knotting into a tight grimace as his thoughts turned internal and introspective once more. It looked to Sam as though he was trying to fight against a rising tide of anguish that threatened to overwhelm him.

"Daniel, you don't have to go on." Having seen the pain lying just beneath the surface of his emotions, she tried to derail it, to steer him away from this most painful of revelations. "I understand now. I understand why this time of year is so difficult for you."

For an instant she thought that he would accept her offer of an out, that he would allow her to pull him from the mire of his tumultuous memories, but then he shook his head, his blue eyes reaching for and locking onto hers until he was holding her steadfast with that determined gaze.

"Thank you," His fingers ran up the side of her face, sliding tenderly across her skin, pushing at an errant strand of hair that had fallen across her forehead, his fingers sifting through her hair as he guided it gently back into place, "thank you for trying to ease this for me, but I've come too far now to stop. I've never spoken of this before, not even to Sha're, but I feel it is now time that it came out into the open, time that I stopped living in the shadow that it has cast around me since I was a boy. "

His hand stilled against the side of her face, its penetrating warmth seeping into her skin and she couldn't resist the temptation to lean into his touch. Even as she did so, a part of her mind was registering the fact that his gesture and her reaction to it had raised the level of intimacy between them to a new level. To a level, it would appear, that neither one of them seemed uncomfortable with.

Then his hand moved away and the link was broken, leaving her cheek feeling cool and bereft of his touch.

"That Christmas Day was the happiest of my life. Even the weather had brought its own special gift…the gift of snow…not much…just a soft sprinkling…but to a boy who had spent his life in the Egyptian desert it was magical. After I opened my presents we went for a walk and I remember being totally mesmerised by the ice rink at the Rockefeller Centre.

When we got back to the apartment, mom and dad sat me down and gave me another brightly wrapped present. I wasn't expecting another one, so you can imagine my surprise when I pulled off the wrapping paper and there in my hands was a teddy bear."

"A teddy bear?"

"The bear wasn't the present, Sam, it was the message that was written on its little blue tee shirt."

"What did it say?"

Daniel's face lit up with a smile that went all the way to his expressive blue eyes. He squeezed the hand that he was holding softly and placed his free hand across their joined one.

Unconsciously, Sam's free hand joined his.

"It said Merry Christmas big brother!"

Sam heard her gasp before she realised that she had uttered it.

"There was another reason why my parents had decided to settle in New York, why they were busily house hunting in between setting up the exhibition." His radiant smile faded to be replaced with a bittersweet one. "My mom was pregnant."

"Oh, Daniel… I'm so sorry." She felt her eyes narrowing as her mind took that moment to unwittingly replay the images that she had tried so hard to forget for so many years. The last tragic moments in the life of Claire and Mel Jackson. "I didn't know…your mother…she didn't look…"

"At the time of the accident she had just finished her first trimester."

Tears prickled the back of Sam's eyes, but refused to fall.

How had he been able to process all that at such a young age?

"I had never liked being an only child. I had begged them on more than one occasion for a sibling, but I found out later that mom had found it hard to conceive, it was just an accident of timing that it happened while we were in New York." Daniel pulled at Sam's hands until he was holding each of hers in his, grasping them tightly between their bodies, connecting them on more than just a physical level but upon an emotional one too. "I spent that Christmas Day looking forward to the future, wishing it would rush forward at breakneck speed just so that I could see what exciting new things it would bring into my life."

'_Be careful what you wish for.'_

Whenever Sam had gotten a little ahead of herself, her grandmother had always brought her up short with that old chestnut. It had become the cliché of cliché's in the Carter household when she was growing up.

Oh God!

What a painful way for Daniel to have learnt that lesson.

"Two months after Christmas they started work erecting the exhibition that would showcase their most significant find…an elaborately adorned cover stone dating back to Middle Egypt…back to the time of the most influential pharaohs." His voice trailed off and Sam detected a quavering in its cadence. "You know the rest."

Silence descended upon the forest in which they sat as though every living thing in its vicinity had been listening to Daniel's story. As though everything had been stunned by the raw anguish and despair captured within its narrative.

Moments passed, seconds turning into minutes of shocked silence. Then Sam felt a tremble shudder through her hands where they were still clasped within Daniel's, followed by another and another. Looking up, she realised that Daniel was crying, holding back the sobs with the last of his inner resolve.

Before she realised what she was doing, she disentangled their hands, using hers to pull his trembling body against her, wrapping her arms tightly around his shoulders as she rested his head against her chest.

"It's okay, Daniel… it's okay, let it all out." She rocked him against her, hearing the dam break inside him as he let out a cry of anguish so forlorn that it brought instant tears to her own eyes. She felt the first drops of moisture slide down her face, felt the tightness in her throat constrict her windpipe until it ached.

As he broke apart within the safe confines of her arms, she nuzzled her head against his and pulled him even more tightly against her, wanting to take the physical and mental pain that he was feeling and make it a part of her own body.

Wanting so desperately to make it right, but knowing that she couldn't.

As the minutes passed, the sound of Daniel's sobs abated, but he continued to hold onto her, his own arms wrapping themselves around her waist, clinging to her as though she were his only safe haven from the storm surge that assailed him.

"Everything died with them, Sam." His words were muffled as he spoke them into her chest, but she could feel the heat of them as it permeated through her thin clothing. "Everything I wanted… Everything that I needed…a home…a family… it died with them on that cold February morning."

"Somehow you made it, Daniel." She placed a soft reassuring kiss upon the top of his head. "I don't know how you did because I don't think I could have, but you made it…you grew into someone they all would have been proud of."

Much more than that, despite the tragedy that had blighted his early life, he had matured into an adult whose sense of compassion was unsurpassed, whose sense of commitment to doing the right thing remained untainted even though he had seen enough corruption and misuse of power to have tested the most devoted of saints.

He had grown into a man who had saved the entire population of a planet when he had selflessly and courageously pulled them back from the brink of nuclear annihilation.

At the cost of his own life.

In short… he had grown into the man that she loved.

The man that she loved?

She felt her eyes widen in shocked surprise at this unexpected epiphany. Felt her hands tighten infinitesimally around the anguished man that she held in her arms. Could she be right? Could the man that she had spent so long looking for, be the one man that she had always felt the most comfortable with?

The one person in her life to which she had felt such an affinity?

Could Daniel be the man that she loved?

Yes.

Truly loved?

Yes.

In all the manifestations that that one word conveyed?

Yes.

Holy Hannah, why hadn't she seen this before?

Why hadn't she seen it when she had been pining away over Jack? Had it been there all along and she had simply refused to acknowledge it?

Did he feel the same way?

So many questions were now tumbling through her mind, chasing after one another, moving at such a rate that she couldn't pin one down long enough to give it more in depth thought. She didn't notice Daniel shift in her arms, didn't feel him loosen the hold of her hands upon him, didn't realise that he was moving away from her until she felt the shift in temperature caused by his body's withdrawal from hers.

Snapping her thoughts back to the present, she found him getting to his feet, brushing off the moss and dry leaves that had stuck to his clothing while he had been seated.

"Daniel where are you going?"

"Back to the village. It's been a long evening and I could do with some rest."

Sam struggled to her feet, brushing at the debris that had accumulated upon her own clothing as she straightened to stand.

"Don't go. Come back to the party with me."

"I don't think that is a good idea… I don't think that I can…"

"Please, Daniel." She took a gentle hold of his hand, squeezing it softly. "There is something I want to show you."

He seemed to contemplate her words and she couldn't help worrying that he might decide that he would be better off back in the village.

Tonight Daniel had shared one of his inner most secrets with her, now she wanted to share one of her own with him.

But to do that… she had to take him back to the Christmas tree.


	4. Chapter 4

**Two Million Light Years From Christmas**

**Chapter 4**

**A/N Thank you to everyone that has stayed with this story. This is a longer chapter because I wanted to make sure that the story was finished. Let me know what you think. **

He didn't know why he had agreed to go back to the party with her. In all honesty he really didn't feel like rejoining the festivities. His confession had left him feeling physically exhausted and emotionally raw.

However, there had been a look in her pale blue eyes that had convinced him to at least make the effort. So he had wrapped the last of his waning resolve around himself like a blanket, hoping that it might provide a flimsy shield against any latent feelings still lurking within his wounded psyche and followed her out of the forest, back toward the clearing.

Sam was holding his hand tightly as they made their way through the screen of trees, much as she had done earlier when she had led him toward her impromptu celebrations. This time the touch felt different to him, as though he was being buoyed by the comforting reassurance of her thumb as it stroked absently across the back of his hand.

When they broke through the trees and re-entered the clearing, it was to find it practically empty. Only a scattering of people remained, those assigned the task of tidying up the residue left over by the revellers. The trestle tables had already been dismantled and a group of men were beginning to carry them back toward the village, the food and beverages had already been removed. Gone too were many of the torches that had been hammered into the ground.

But someone had managed to find more wood to put upon the camp fire and it crackled and glowed with all the intensity that it had shown earlier. Behind it, the Christmas tree stood sentinel, its lights shining brightly against its darker backdrop.

Slowly Sam moved toward the tree, coming to pause in front of it, reaching out to touch some of the embellishments lightly with her fingers.

"You know that this time of year is special for me, but do you know why?"

Daniel shook his head as he watched her, even though he knew that she couldn't see the gesture. He remained quiet, waiting for her to continue, curious about what new facet of her life she was about to reveal to him.

"In some ways we are similar, Daniel, maybe more similar than either one of us truly realise." She removed a small aluminium star from one of the branches of the tree, turning it over and over in her hand, gazing down at its shiny surface wistfully. She turned around to face him, taking a few short steps back from the glowing Christmas tree until she was standing before him. Extending her fingers, she placed the aluminium star in his hand.

"Where you choose to try and forget, I choose to remember." She nodded down toward the star in his hand. "This is one of the ways in which I choose to remember, Daniel. This is how I remember someone who has been lost to me, someone who had a very important and loving influence upon my life."

"Your mother?"

Sam nodded sombrely.

"Christmas meant everything to her, it was her special time of the year, regardless of whether Dad was home or serving overseas. Each year she would pull all the stops out to ensure that Mark and I had the most happy and enjoyable Christmas she could arrange. She would always put on a great show, and not just for us children, but for other families on the base whose father's were absent during the festive season.

I remember the house always being full of laughter, love and hope."

It was easy for Daniel to conjure an image of a young pigtailed Sam and her brother happily crashing into their mother's room on Christmas morning, eagerly sharing hugs and kisses before going downstairs to open their presents.

"You're holding one of those traditions."

He squinted down at the star nestled in the palm of his hand, at a loss to understand its meaning with regard to the story that Sam was telling. He let his gaze roam over the adornment for a moment longer before raising enquiring eyes toward her.

"The star represents those missing from your life, those that are no longer with you or absent for some other reason during the Christmas season. It's a tradition that my mom started when we were small children, when…" She gnawed slowly upon her bottom lip as though she were contemplating confiding something more, something deeply personal. "…Daniel, my dad was shot down when he was serving in Vietnam, he was missing for eight months. That Christmas was the first time that my mom ever put a star on the tree, it was her way of making us feel as though Dad was still with us on Christmas Day."

So now he knew the meaning behind the star that he was holding and how it had become a part of the Carter family tradition, but he still didn't know why Sam felt that it could somehow hold a significant meaning for him?

Sam gently took the star out of his hand and headed back toward the tree, replacing it upon a higher branch than the one that it had sat upon before. It twisted upon its looped fastening, turning in lazy circles, the soft glow of the firelight causing it to shimmer.

"I have tried to continue that tradition, making sure that there were stars upon my tree, each one a reminder of someone I have lost or someone that is missing from my life." Her hand tenderly caressed another of the stars before moving on to touch another. "Naturally they have grown over the years as my losses have mounted." She was silent for a brief moment and he knew that she was absorbed in her memories, memories of all those people that had once been a part of her life, but had been taken from her during her long association with the Stargate programme. "Adding Dad's and Janet's stars were particularly poignant, but in their own small way they comforted me."

Suddenly, Sam's words faltered, her voice fading away into the night. Her earlier genial countenance changed as a cloud of immense sorrow passed across her visage. Daniel watched silently as his friend struggled with this new and unwanted intrusion, observing her body tensing until it almost became rigid, the fingers of her right hand curling into a tight fist at her side.

"Since my mother's death, there has only been one year when I couldn't do it. One year when I couldn't bring myself to put a star upon the tree. The very thought of it filled me with so much grief that it threatened to completely overwhelm me." When she looked at him, Daniel could see the tears perching precariously upon her full eyelashes, her steadfast determination the only thing preventing them from cascading down her cheeks. "It was the only year when I didn't follow through with the tradition."

"Was it the year that you lost your mom?"

Much to his surprise she shook her head, causing the perilously perched tears to break from their fortifications.

"No, it wasn't then, it was much later than that …" she hesitated, her words suddenly drying up. The tears that had breached her defences now ran unabated down her face, teetering briefly upon her chin before falling to splatter quietly against the BDU jacket that she wore. "…but it was someone as equally precious in my life…someone whose existence had a profound effect upon me, in ways that I could never have imagined, someone that I now realise I had come to love so very much."

He could tell by the slight quivering of her voice that the memory was still a hard one for her to remember, so even though his curiosity had been piqued, he decided it would be better not to pry any further. It was obvious from Sam's intense reaction to the recollection that whoever that person was, she had been deeply attached to them and, judging by what she had just said, she had belatedly come to the conclusion that she had been in love with them.

He couldn't help wondering if the person had been Martouf?

Sam turned away from him, struggling to keep her emotions under control, embarrassed by her unaccustomed show of weakness within his presence.

Knowing that his friend was in need of his support, Daniel quickly crossed the small distance between them until he was standing close behind her. Gently he slipped his hands around her waist, pulling her softly against him until her back nestled against his chest. When she made no signs of pulling away, he allowed his hands to slip further around her so that they lay splayed against her abdomen.

Sam's hands came to rest softly across his, holding them in place, accepting his offer of comfort.

"It's a beautiful tradition and I think your mom must have been a very special lady, Sam." He rested his chin upon the soft blonde hair at the crown of her head, mirroring the gesture that Sam had made earlier when she had been holding him.

It felt good to hold her like this, to feel her body pressed tightly against his own. He could feel her heart beating softly against his chest, feel the warmth of her hands as they lay upon his, smell the tell tale aroma of her fruit scented shampoo mingling with her own unique essence.

In some ways it all felt a little too good and just a little dangerous.

"Daniel, will you do something for me." Sam's voice broke him from his thoughts and he pulled his head away from her as he felt her twist around in his embrace, her hands coming up to rest against his shoulders, her watery eyes staring up into his. "Will you add your stars to the tree?"

"Sam, I don't think that…"

"Remember them, Daniel, remember every wonderful memory that they ever gave to you." The fingers of her right hand brushed gently against his cheek and in yet another parallel of earlier, Daniel felt himself lean into the touch. "Choose to leave the darkness behind, bring them out into the light."

Could he do this?

Did he have enough strength to banish the demons of his past?

He knew that it would take a lot more than just sticking a few shiny stars upon a tree, but he also knew that in making that gesture, he would be taking the first hesitant steps into a more positive future.

He stared into Sam's eyes, seeing her own strength shining determinedly back at him and he knew that should he choose to do this, he wouldn't be doing it alone. Sam would be by his side, as she had always been since that day when they had met in the cartouche room on Abydos.

"Okay, I'll do it."

A smile spread across her lips, lighting up her eyes, making them twinkle in the firelight's glow. She took a step back causing him to reluctantly release her from his embrace.

Squatting down, she busied herself at the base of the tree, her fingers sifting through a small pile of decorations and embellishments, she piled some into her hand before straightening her posture and returning to him.

"Here."

She placed a number of stars in his hand. Daniel shifted them around with his finger, letting it wander across their smooth, shiny surface.

"Why are there four here?"

"One each for your mother and father, one for Sha're and one for…" Sam looked at him, her eyes willing him to make the mental leap.

"…for my unborn sibling."

His own eyes telegraphed his silent gratitude, amazed at the depth of her compassion and understanding.

"Come on, hang them on the tree." She led him by the hand until he stood next to it, then she took a step to the side, leaving room so that he could manoeuvre around the branches without her getting in the way.

Hesitantly, he took one of the bright stars from the palm of his hand and held it between his fingers. The jury rigged fairy lights gleamed across its surface and he could see his own, albeit distorted, reflection staring back at him.

_For my mother._

With fingers that trembled slightly, he hooked the star over the nearest branch and watched it twirl around and around, the combined firelight and tree lights making it sparkle and flicker.

Moving slowly around the tree, he placed a star in honour of his long lost father and then another for his more recently demised wife. He hesitated at the last star, the one that represented the memory of his unborn sibling, his mind and heart suddenly faltering under the weight of loss that suddenly assailed him.

He couldn't move his hand, it was as if the tiny aluminium star had suddenly taken on the density of its real life counterparts. The more he tried to motion his arm forward, the more it seemed to refuse to go, as though a part of him was still reluctant, even after all these years, to finally let go of this last piece from his tragic past.

Sam's strong hand curled softly around his, giving it a comforting squeeze. He felt his arm slowly begin to move forward under her gentle guidance, felt it fully extend until his fingers were almost touching the tiny branch that protruded out before him. When the looped fastening slipped over the tip of the branch, he felt Sam's hand begin to retreat, allowing him to finish the task unaided.

"No," Daniel's eyes met with hers, "together."

Sam hesitated for the briefest of moments, then he felt the warmth of her hand encapsulate his once more and together they guided the little silver star until it rested comfortably upon its branch.

_For the brother or sister that I never had the chance to meet._

As they pulled their hands away from the tree, Sam interlaced her fingers through Daniel's, giving them another reassuring squeeze. He returned the gesture, letting her know through his touch how grateful he was for her help, then before she could break the fragile link between them, he pulled her into a tight hug.

"Daniel, are you okay?"

"No," he pulled her slightly away from him, keeping his arms loosely entwined about her waist, not wanting to break the contact completely, but just enough so that he could look at her. He saw the frown line begin to form between her perfectly defined eyebrows, the concern regarding his remark begin to make its way into her placid blue eyes and knew that he needed to clarify what he had just said, "but thanks to you… I will be."

"You have nothing to thank me for, Daniel." He felt her return his embrace, sliding her arms around his midriff, caressing his back softly with her fingers, gradually easing the accumulated tension from his tired muscles. "So… do you feel up to sharing another Carter family tradition?"

"Sure, Sam, what do you have in mind?"

"Well, each Christmas Eve I hang a snowflake on my tree."

"A snowflake?" He couldn't help the hint of amusement from creeping into his voice. "Why a snowflake?"

"When we were little, Mark and I used to love playing out in the snow… that is whenever we got the chance." She looked wistful again as she slipped once more into the realm of her childhood memories. "You'd be surprised just how many Air Force bases are below the snowline… for years I didn't know what snow was." A gentle smile pulled at the corners of her mouth at the memory. "Anyhow, whenever it did snow, Mark and I would make the most of it, charging around the backyard in a frenzy, trying to catch as many snowflakes as we could before they disappeared.

Then one day dad told us that if we managed to catch a snowflake on our tongue, we should make a wish before it melted because those wishes were always the ones that came true. Of course we believed him, but try as we might, we never succeeded, the snow always melted on our tongues before we could even start to make a wish."

"That must have been disappointing."

She nodded her head in agreement.

"In order to curb our growing despair, mom decided that we needed a symbolic snowflake, one that could be used once every year to make a wish, so she made us each one to put on the tree on Christmas Eve because, according to mom, that was the time of year when wishes came true the most.

A small beep emanated from the military chronograph on Sam's wrist.

"It's almost midnight, if we are going to make our wishes, we better be quick."

She broke free from his embrace and moved back to the tree, squatting down on her haunches so that she could rummage through the adornments that still lay scattered around its base. She returned a few seconds later holding two large aluminium covered snowflakes.

Daniel glanced over her shoulder toward the tree, noticing that it already seemed to have its fair share of that particular embellishment. "Sam, have you taken a look at the tree. I'd say that you've already used up enough wishes to last you for at least the next decade."

Sam chuckled with amusement.

"Oh, they're not mine."

"They're not?"

"No, those belong to the village children. They helped me make all the decorations, so naturally when I told them the story behind the snowflakes, they wanted to make their own and put them on the tree. Those are their wishes, Daniel, not mine."

Ah…so that was why he had seen her doing a fair impersonation of the Pied Piper after supper.

She pushed a snowflake into his hand.

"Make a wish, then slip the snowflake onto the branch, but hurry we don't have long."

Taking her own snowflake, she walked around the tree until she found a spare branch. Then she closed her eyes, her brows furrowing slightly as she made her wish. For a brief moment, she was not the incredibly smart astrophysicist or the courageous military officer that he had come to know, but a little girl again, making her special Christmas wish.

Then the firelight caught her features in that particular way, the way that it had earlier in the evening, when Daniel had found himself so inexplicably drawn to her.

He felt the air catch in his throat.

She was so incredibly beautiful, with the firelight catching her features in that one perfect moment, burnishing her with its golden fire, mesmerising him with her exquisiteness, allowing him to see past the drab uniform that she wore, unveiling the sensuous woman that lay beyond.

Of course it was something to which Sam was totally oblivious. She never saw the potency of her natural beauty.

She never recognised how it made Daniel feel whenever he caught a rare glimpse of her in this way.

She was unaware of the yearnings that it always evoked within him.

More so now…than ever before.

"Daniel…quick!"

The sound of her voice startled him, causing a blush of deep crimson to flush his had been caught staring at her, but obviously she was less concerned with him ogling her, than she was that he might miss his chance to bestow his wish upon the tree.

Without further hesitation, he strode toward the tree, looking for a free branch on which to hang his snowflake. Finding one, he reached his hand out to slip the decoration over the protrusion, but then he hesitated, realising that he didn't have a ready wish at hand.

What could he wish for?

Then a small smile turned up the corner of his mouth and he knew exactly what he was going to ask for.

He slipped the snowflake onto the branch, suspecting as he did so that the chances of his wish ever coming true would be astronomical.

The watch on Sam's wrist began to beep again.

He felt Sam's hand on his shoulder, felt her tug at him gently as she turned him around to face her. She took a step toward him, letting her hand slip softly around his neck as she moved into his personal space.

"Merry Christmas, Daniel."

"Merry Christmas, Sam."

"Guess you just got your wish in under the wire." Her eyes twinkled with unconcealed merriment.

"Tell me something, Sam, do they ever come true?"

She looked at him long and hard, her blue eyes losing some of the merriment that he had just witnessed. They wandered casually across his features as though she were drinking them in, as though she were memorising him in case she should someday forget. Behind the veil of normalcy that he saw in the blue depths of her eyes, he could detect a hidden anguish, one that had taken root deeply.

"Sometimes…" Her head lowered, her gaze dropping to stare at the ground, "…sometimes if you wish hard enough…if you want something badly enough…sometimes then…if you're lucky…your wish comes true."

"That sounds like the voice of experience."

When she looked back up toward him, he was surprised to see a sheen of wetness in her eyes.

"That year that I told you about earlier… the one when I couldn't put the star on the tree..," he watched her struggle to blink away the tears, saw the pain and anguish etch its way around her eyes and mouth, "…it was the year that we lost you, Daniel…it was the Christmas after the events on Kelowna."

He knew his eyes had widened, could feel his mouth gaping open in surprise at her words, but he couldn't say anything. Since that day when they had found him on Vis Urban, nobody had spoken about the time when he had ascended, it was almost as if it were a taboo subject. He had assumed that his friends had had their reasons, that maybe the memories were too painful for them to recount, but judging by what he was now witnessing with Sam, he had underestimated the impact that his elected departure had caused.

"I couldn't face putting your star upon my tree, to do so would have meant admitting that you would never be a part of my life again." A solitary tear slipped over the parapets of her eyelashes to run unsteadily down her cheek. "By the time of the holidays everyone had come to terms with what had happened, they had moved on…everyone that is…except me. I couldn't do it, Daniel, I couldn't just accept that you were gone…that I would never see you again." Another tear erupted down her face, following the same path as the earlier one. "There was this big hole where you had once been, a chasm so cold and so large that it felt as if a part of me had been torn away."

Daniel's hands came up to softly cup her face between them, his thumbs gently soothing away the tears that now ran unabated down her cheeks.

It was tearing him apart to see her like this, to see the raw torment that she had had to endure at his absence. He hadn't known, he hadn't realised that she had been hurting this bad and after all the years that had passed since then, her torment didn't seem to have diminished.

"That year I wished harder than I ever had before. I put every last ounce of hope that I had into that snowflake, every last drop of faith into wishing that somehow you would come back," she brought her hand up to touch Daniel's cheek, to let it rest against his chin, "and you did…you came back to me." She took a deep cleansing breath and blew it out softly through her mouth. "So in answer to your question, Daniel… yes…sometimes the wishes do come true."

Providing that you wanted them badly enough.

At that moment something clicked into place in Daniel's mind, a recollection from earlier when Sam had been recounting that time when she had not been able to comply with her annual tradition.

"…_it was someone as equally precious in my life…someone whose existence had a profound effect upon me, in ways that I could never have imagined, someone that I now realise I had come to love so very much."_

His eyes widened in shocked understanding.

She had been talking about him.

It wasn't Martouf that Sam had belated realised that she loved… but him.

The revelation caused his equilibrium to falter and the world around him seemed to stutter for a nanosecond before continuing upon its axis.

Sam had feelings for him, feelings that, up until now, he could never have dreamed possible.

Even though he had harboured those same feelings for her, he had never expected to find them reciprocated. In the long, lonely nights when he had lain alone in his bed, he had contemplated their being together, envisioned them taking their unique and deeply bound friendship to another level, one that would bring them intimately closer, but in the cold reality of daylight, he always banished those thoughts, too afraid of the implications that would result with such a profound change in their relationship.

But now…

"Sam… can I ask you something?"

"Hmm…" She sounded a little distracted, as though her mind had been focused upon something else. She was still standing within his personal space, her hand resting gently against his shoulder. "… oh, um, sure, Daniel, what do you want to know?"

"Tell me what you wished for just now?"

There was a look of hesitancy in her eyes, followed by one of uncertainty. Her gaze swept away from his to glance back over his shoulder toward the Christmas tree, toward where she had made her wish.

He could tell by the way that she was focusing firmly upon the tree that she was having an internal debate with herself, she was probably arguing the wisdom behind answering his question, then she seemed to make a mental decision and her focus returned to his face.

"I've been making the same wish for quite a few years now, wishing that there could be more to my life, that I could have something outside of the confines of the Stargate programme, outside of the military."

"A personal life?"

"I'm tired of being alone, Daniel, tired of waking up in the middle of the night with nobody to hold. Tired of coming home to a lonely house, it's why I stay on base a lot of the time. I wouldn't throw myself into my work as much as I do if I had someone to come home to. If I had someone to love."

"Is there a specific someone?"

The hue of Sam's eyes darkened and he saw an emotion emerge from within their depths that startled him. It was an emotion that he had rarely seen, certainly one that Sam usually disguised well, even during the most heated of battles when all hope of their survival seemed lost, but now on a planet millions of light years away from their home it surfaced.

Fear.

She was afraid.

The irony of it was almost laughable.

She was as afraid to tell him how she felt, as he had been to tell her. No doubt she harboured the same insecurities, the same uncertainties as he did about changing the course of their relationship.

One of them had to break the impasse, had to break free from the mental paralysis that stood between them.

"Earlier you said that I came back to…you?" He put enough emphasis upon the last word to cause Sam's eyes to widen in understanding. "You didn't say that I returned to the team." He took a small step forward, closing the short distance between them. "You specifically said that I returned to you."

Emboldened by the fact that she hadn't stepped away as he had come nearer, he took another half step, effectively causing them to stand toe to toe, the slight height difference between his and Sam's bodies the only thing from keeping him from looking straight into her eyes. Wanting to negate that effect, he slipped his fingers under her chin, tenderly tilting it upward, until those depthless blue orbs were once again focused unswervingly upon his. "Before that, you said that there had been someone that you couldn't contemplate losing from your life, someone that had become precious to you, someone that you had realised that you had come to love very much."

He slipped his fingers across her lips, feeling the soft, moist skin brush across his now heightened nerve endings, continued to run them smoothly down over her chin, across her neck, feeling her pulse quicken under his fingertips, until his hand rested gently against the nape of her neck.

"I didn't realise who that person was until you started to speak about my ascension and the effect that had upon you." With his other hand, he swept an errant strand of blonde hair out of her eyes, sweeping it back into place atop her brow. "You were talking about me, weren't you?"

Without waiting for her response, he guided her mouth toward his, sliding his lips across hers in a gentle exploratory kiss.

The feel of Sam's lips beneath his was incredible, so incredible that he had to feel more of her against him. Using his free hand, he gently tugged her toward him until her warm, pliant body was fully encapsulated within his arms. The sensation of kissing Sam, combined with the exquisite feel of her body pressed so intimately against his own conspired to reawaken emotions that he had thought he had buried long ago upon another planet light years away from Earth.

Awash with these newly rediscovered emotions and sensations, Daniel set about deepening the kiss, slanting his lips further over hers, increasing the pressure, moving his lips across hers in a tender caress.

He could now feel Sam's hands sliding slowly up along the length of his back, feel them come to a halt as they entwined around his neck, the heat of her body pressing closer against his as she pushed herself more firmly against him. He could feel the wet warmth of her lips as they reciprocated his kiss, brushing against his with an intensity, a level of desire that matched his own.

When he swept his tongue across her full bottom lip, she opened her mouth to him on a stifled moan. Their tongues tangled in a flurry of activity, swirling around one another before delving into each other's mouth to lay claim to the newly found treasures that awaited inside.

When they broke apart, he rested his forehead against hers, giving himself a few moments to gulp some much needed oxygen into his lungs.

"Let me be the one that you come home to, Sam, let me be the one that you turn to in the night, the one that you wake with in the morning."

"It was never in any doubt, Daniel." He felt her place a soft kiss against his lips before returning her forehead to rest against his. "I think my heart has belonged to you for a very long time, it just took me a while to realise it."

He pulled his head away from hers so that he could look at her, so that he could see the acceptance of their changed relationship in her eyes, but what her saw made him chuckle with mirth.

For a military officer, she couldn't look less squared away if she tried.

Dishevelled didn't even come close to describing how she looked.

Her BDU's were rumpled and creased from where he had tugged and pulled at her during the heat of their kiss, her hair was uncharacteristically mussed up where his fingers had sifted through it, spiking up the golden strands into a multitude of tiny peaks. Her lips were full and swollen from his relentless assault upon them, the soft skin around her mouth slightly reddened from the friction burns caused by his evening stubble.

All in all she looked like a woman who had been soundly kissed.

"Pleased with yourself?" Raising an eyebrow, she gave him a look of mock indignation.

"Inordinately." He grinned back unashamedly, glad that he could banter with her in this new and more intimate way. "I have to say I like the look on you, Sam."

There was now a radiant glow to her skin that had nothing to do with the firelight, but everything to do with the man in whose arms she was still entwined.

"So, where do we go from here?" He let his hands rest softly against her waist. "What happens next?"

"You douse the fire, Daniel."

"What if I don't want to douse the fire?" He knew that his disappointment had been conveyed in the tone of his voice, but he hadn't expected Sam to halt things quite so quickly.

"I wasn't talking about this fire…" She ran her hand across his abdomen causing his stomach muscles to twitch and clench under her ministrations, before dropping her hand lower, smiling shamelessly at his reaction. "I was talking about the camp fire." She tilted her head to the side, to where the camp fire still blazed. "Throw some earth on it, make sure all the embers are out, we don't want to set fire to the forest."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to disconnect the tree lights from the generator on the MALP. We'll come back in the morning and take everything down. We'll need to move the MALP back to the Stargate so that we can check in, see how the quarantine is going?"

"Would it be wrong of me to wish for the quarantine to last just a little bit longer?" He didn't want to go back home yet, not when he had just discovered how wonderful it felt being with Sam in this new and exciting way.

"You plan on making me miss New Year too?" She smiled brightly up at him, even though her voice had had a note of mock disapproval within it.

"I'd like to say that I'm sorry that you missed Christmas with your family, Sam, but right at this moment… I'm not…this wouldn't have happened between us if the quarantine hadn't come along."

"I know, I feel the same way too. A part of me feels as if I should thank SG-11 when we get back." She tugged at his arms, pulling them gently away from her. Spinning him around, she tenderly shoved him in the direction of the waning camp fire. "Come on, get that fire out and I'll finish up with the tree, then we can go back to the village and unwrap our Christmas presents."

He stopped, turning his head so that he could look at her over his shoulder.

"Ah…Sam, I didn't bring my present with me. I left it back on base… in my office." He tried to convey in his expression how sorry he felt at that oversight, even though, based upon their original schedule, he would have had enough time to give her his gift before she left for her flight to San Diego.

"Who said that I had your Christmas present with me, Daniel, it's under the tree in my lab. I was going to give it to you when we got back." She gave him a devilish smile, letting her eyes run unashamedly across the length of his body in a manner that he could only describe as predatory. "I'm sure if we put our minds to it, we could each come up with something worth unwrapping."

His mouth went decidedly dry at that remark.

However, it had the desired effect because he quickly pivoted on his heel and strode purposefully toward the camp fire with the intention of dousing it in record time.

Without doubt, this had turned out to be one of the most emotionally charged Christmas experiences that he could remember. He had finally confided in Sam the reason why he had shunned the celebrations before and had gotten to make peace with his demons.

More importantly, he and Sam were taking the first tentative steps upon a new road together and he hoped that the journey would be a long and happy one.

Whistling softly to himself, he started to think about all the different ways that he intended to unwrap his special Christmas gift.

**The End.**


End file.
